This isn't something that I would usually like to share with a large amount of people, I really haven't even spoken to my father and brothers about it - but that is one of the ugly aspects about sexual abuse of children. Sometimes, it is the hardest thing in the

world to say to anyone and that shame doesn't end when the abuse does.

At the time of this abuse ( when I was 7) I also lost my mother to a brain tumor and all of the associated grief and confusion that can surround you when this happens.

To say that I became a difficult child was probably putting it kindly! Infact a close family friend said that when I was growing up I was a beautiful looking kid, it was just a pity that anyone who knew me wanted to tie me in a sack and toss me off a jetty. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't doing drugs, stealing or doing anything like that! I was going through a terrible nightmare of grief and sexual abuse and I was too young to know how to cope without a strong parental model.  It was more that  I was expected to not make my Father stressed or mad by crying or being naughty because he had enogh to deal with after losing wife Molly, my Mum.

The rational side of me understands that what happened was in no way my fault, that there wasn't anything that I could do to stop it. But, on a different level, I still walk around as if there is some solid reason for why this happened but I just am to stupid to know what it is! It is a constant torment of trying to accept that I am blameless, yet always seeking answers to the question, Why me? Why did this happen to me?

Now that I have children of my own, I realise that sometimes things can happen to us that we are not in control of and that the most important thing is to be a parent that your children can confide in and know that, what ever happens in life, that love and support is unconditional.  I learned that through not having it and I never want my kids to go there.

T72